NEW ORLEANS -- The NBA, as owners of the New Orleans Hornets, won't trade All-Star guard Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers.

NBA spokesman Mike Bass says: "It's not true that the owners killed the deal, the deal was never discussed at the Board of Governors meeting and the league office declined to make the trade for basketball reasons."

Sources said that a group of NBA owners, assembled in New York for the ratification of the league's new labor pact with the players, protested vigorously that the league-owned Hornets were trading Paul to the star-studded Lakers and convinced NBA commissioner David Stern to intervene.